Welcome to the ISCB Community News Blog

This blog collects news, announcements or other information which could be of interest to our ISCB members. We are a group ISCB members who volunteer to populate this blog on a regular basis. In case you want to become an "ISCB-News Reporter" yourself, let us know: contact ISCBDon't repost copyrighted content! The guidelines are:- Include a link to the source page- Include a short summary about the article. You can quote up to ONE paragraph from the original story, but not more- Don't repost an entire articles originating from another source- Never post content without attribution — always include the sourceTo post a news, please use this form.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

The Global Alliance to Prevent Prematurity and Stillbirth (GAPPS), an initiative of Seattle Childrens, is now accepting letters of inquiry for a new grant program, the Preventing Preterm Birth initiative (PPB).

GAPPS seeks projects that explore gestational origins, biological mechanisms and the immunological response to infection and nutritional deficiency which lead to preterm birth, especially in the developing world.

GAPPS will fund several projects for $1-2 million each to discover the biological mechanisms that lead to preterm birth. The Preventing Preterm Birth initiative was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as part of the Grand Challenges in Global Health.

Details and application instructions are available at http://www.gapps.org/healthybirth. Letters of inquiry are being accepted online until 31 January, 2012.

The PPB review committee will review all letters of inquiry submitted, and selected applicants will be invited to submit a full grant proposal.

We look forward to receiving innovative ideas from scientists around the world and from all scientific disciplines. If you do not submit a letter of inquiry yourself, we hope you will forward this message to someone else who might be interested.

Announcement and Call for Application to the EMBO practical Course on "Bioinformatics and Comparative Genome Analyses"(http://events.embo.org/12-comparative-genomics/index.html) that will take place in the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, Naples - Italy, 7 – 19 May, 2012.

The main objective of this intensive course is to strengthen capacities of Phd students and young scientists, in Bioinformatics and large-scale genome data analyses skills.

The course will focus on reviews on advanced fundamental algorithms and methods used in Bioinformatics and their applications in genome studies.The course topics will include among others, theoretical and practical aspects in: large-scale genome comparisons, evolutionary analyses, sequence and genome alignments, Methods for reapeats detection in genomes sequences, orthologs prediction and classification, Genome data visualization, Methods and tools used in Next Generation Sequencing Data analyses.Practical sessions in a Linux environment will involve Unix and Perl scripting.Participants are expected to be familiar with this environment.

The topics that will be included in the course programme are similar to those included in previously organized courses: http://www.pasteur.fr/~tekaia/BGA_courses.html

The course is aimed at motivated Ph.D students and Post-Doctoral Researchers in Academic Institutions, with background in Mathematics, Statistics, Biology or Computer Science and who are involved in Bioinformatics and Genomes studies.

Selection of participants will be based on their background, running research projects and on expressed motivations.Selected students will have free accommodation and meals and are expected to contribute with 400 euros and to pay for their travel expenses.All participants (students and invited speakers) will stay in the same hotel.

Detailed indications are available on the course web site: http://events.embo.org/12-comparative-genomics/index.html

Candidates are advised to complete carefully the application form, together with a "one-page CV" and a personal Identity Picture (Photo).